Reviews by Todd:

A murky, chocolate brown beer with a sturdy off-white laced head. Rather patchy and bitty ... good retention.

Aroma is very malty, fruity with loads of esters and alcohol.

Wow ... this beer is quite light on-tap, but still creamy and smooth. Malty, but not really sweet, with toasty bread, hints of caramel, candied-fruit cake and pineapple, or rather fruit cocktail juice (the leftover stuff after you eat all of the fruit from the cup). Big yeasty character. Loads of alcohol warmth. Thin finish for a barleywine. I wanted more body, more malt richness ... but it wasn't there.

More User Reviews:

Probably the lightest pour from a barleywine I have come across as it poured a dull burnt orange infused copper with a tight formed lacey white head into my imperial nonic.Fruity esters mixed with piney/soapy hops wich from reading others reviews surprised me a little.The palate to me is more American barleywine than English with a bigger pine and citric hop profile up against a sweet fruit,caramel malt base.Yeah it gets a little sweet after awhile but I like the hops that show thru,not bad.

This brewery has been appearing with more frequency here in southern Maine/seacoast New Hampshire, and I'm very happy about that. This was a fairly nice barleywine, kind of middle of the road. In a snifter it was a red/brown color with a thin tan head. It had a caramel malt aroma with a little hint of fruit. Taste was mostly hops, a little sweet caramel. The alcohol was not noticeable at all. It had a subdued, unaggressive mouthfeel. Very drinkable.

Lighter body for a barleywine, lots of raw flavours of yeast, grain and alcohol. Hops are laid back with a woody earthy flavour. Yeast, malt and fruit are blended very well with a bready candied fruit flavour. On the sweet side though finishes a bit dry with grainy notes and a growing alcohol.

Tasty and very in the raw, a creamy sipping style brew and a perfect way to end the night.

Baggywrinkle opens to a malty nose, yeasty rising whole wheat dough, floury baguette, toast crust, and biscuit mixing with brown sugar, vanilla, caramel, and a mix of light and dark fruit esters – orange, berry, and cherry, but also plum, date, and light raisin – to form a spiceless fruitcake aroma, but with shades of tawny port and toffee. Light grapefruit and pine overtones from the hops help provide contrast. As a whole, the nose is quite nice, the light and dark sugars and fruits mixing well with the yeasty rising breads, the result bouncing between sugary and dark, yeasty and bready. In the end, the sugars are what are most noticeable, thanks to the high 12% ABV, but it’s important to note here that the alcohol doesn’t come through overly so in the nose as in a martini or cocktail, but instead blends well with everything else. The aroma’s main weakness is a surprising lack of strength for a high ABV beer, the nose almost needing to be in the glass to detect it.

On the tongue, the beer proves to be much more bitter than the nose let on, with grapefruit and pine from the hops mixing with strange, Caribbean-like pineapple, coconut, and mango-papaya fruits, as well as strong dashes of pepper. The alcohol is also much more noticeable here, lacing the tongue like a strong fruit cocktail and filling the nasal cavities with vapors. The strangeness of the fruits are somewhat tempered by brown sugar, vanilla, toasted nut, toast crust, and biscuit, as well as some fig and raisin fruit esters, but the result is somewhat messy, as if the beer can’t quite make up its mind what it wants to be. In subsequent sips much of the initial nuance of the beer is gone, including the strange fruits, but what is left is a peppery, figgy, cola-like taste laced with soft-tissue-burning moonshine, fading into a long-lingering aftertaste of toasted nuts, burnt brown sugar, and lots and lots of alcohol. Mouthfeel is medium, and carbonation is medium to medium-high, the beer slightly foaming in the mouth.

Overall, while the aromas were very nice, and continue to be nice throughout the experience, the flavors are overly muddled, and the alcohol – at least on the tongue – sharp and undisguised. The beer needs a better balance between flavor and alcohol, and quite a few more bread and fruit notes to improve the flavors.

Appearance: golden amber with a slight haze, very moussey off white head. Smell: Not a big nose – some fruit, alcohol, faint sweetness. Taste: Fills the mouth with foam that introduces fruit flavors over light malts that are almost immediately met by rich grapefruit rind hops that guide the drinker to the finish. The hops are big enough to balance a fair amount of sweetness in the beer. Mouthfeel: Big, chewy, creamy, rich.

A- Dense deep caramel body with a bubbly thick light tan head that last for a good bit. there is a gentle carbonation trailing up the sides of the glass.

S- The aroma of cream and caramel have some nice butter toffee notes as it warms.

T- the classic caramel malt with a touch of sweetness and a nice dry woody hop hint in the finish. There is a note of pine resin in the hops but it always stays pretty soft compared to the malt flavors.

M- The medium-full mouthfeel is followed by no alcohol heat until it is really warm.

O- The nice classic rich English barleywine is slightly dry and very drinkable. The nice American hops notes and a new twist to this well build beer.

Taste first of orange, and with some sour apple and some oaked characteristics, a bunch of caramel, some raisin and sugar. A small off-white head on mahogoney brown body, a medium mouthfeel, an OK balanced barleywine, leaning on the sweet side.Fizzy carbonation.

A: Poured a muddy, watery brown with burnt orange highlights with a quickly dissipating sandstone head that failed to leave much of a lacing. Visible effervesce was hard to determine but a fairly strong sense could be detected beneath the murky waters.

S: The nose was boozy, to say the least with a sour whiskey mash aroma best describing things here. Jack daniels, evan williams is well sensed here. Very limited complexity wise with the boozy nature dominating.

T: The flavor opened up with brief glimpses of sweetness of grain juice runoff (wort) starting things off before a boozy sense of whiskey sour mash moves in. Over fermented fruit (apples) brings a dry, mushy fruitiness of prison hooch punch to the mix. Much like the aroma, the flavor comes off one-dimensional lacking complexity and was hindered by a hooch fueled alcohol experience that was near unbearable at times. I like my beers big, and my barleywines with some complexity and smoothness, this was just mess with sour, mushy, rotten fruit that came off with a prison hooch mentality whos only focus is to brag about its abv and to get you drunk with no regards to any taste value.

M: light bodied, with a light oily texture, coming off rather unexciting and boring.

D: There is just no way in hell i can drink a bomber of this by myself. As the label suggest its best shared with a friend (perhaps with one whose friendship you dont value much). This went down with a fight, a pure boozefest that was heavy handed alcohol wise with little regard to balance or flavor. Maybe this would be better served by some aging, or perhaps better served as a heating fuel. pass on this one. endnote: overall an average rating to me is one that i could either live with, or without, this beer certainly provoked several areas of personal dislike and aspects that lacked in some of the more finer barleywine examples. needless to say , save your money on this one unless you are the curious type who wants to personally see how bad an example can be.

Thanks to PPoitras for the big bottle.
Pours to color of rusty water with a sheen of lace. Leaves just a residual hint of lacing.
Aroma has a belgian candi malt note with some very bready tones and some caramel notes.
Flavor has a pronounced yeastiness to it that seems a bit out of place but this quikcly replaced by a doughy, grainy bread note along with some caramel and really resined and somewhat piney bittering.
Mouthfeel is highly sweetened with some cnady sugar and molasses notes with some residual earthiness. Finishes pretty dry for a BW with even a touch of salt on the palate.
Drinkability is decent but this was sort of an odd duck. Kind of a Belgian Barleywine is what I would call it. Decent flavors that were a bit bitter cold rather than warmed.

Pours a beautifulhazy brown/deep amber color with a thick, creamy, lasting, tan head. Nice sweet caramel and bready malt aromas dominate this one with some definite alcohol spiciness to it as well. The taste starts off with some huge bready malt flavors and sweet caramelness. There is a bit of dark fruit complexity here with some raisins and slight vinous characters. There is also some slight alcohol characterisitcs that are mostly present only in their brain fogging nature. Very creamy but a little bit thinner than I would like I could drink this stuff all day, until I passed out at least. Other users seemed not to like it and thought it was rather thin so I don't know if they changed the recipe or if this one just gets tremedously better over time or what but I really liked it.